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Kamis, 20 April 2017

This
research deals with developing digital English teaching materials for students
of civil engineering. The objectives of this research are to know how digital
English materials English is designed for civil engineering students. This
research conducted qualitative method using Research and Development methodology
(R&D). The data collected were analyzed by applying interactive model of Miles and Huberman.This is used data collecting
Technique Triangulation. The location of this research was STT Harapan Medan.
The result of teaching ESP was not suitable to develop the students’ competence
in communicating English. Teaching ESP can be effective when the lecturer’s
competence matches to teaching ESP. The data analysis showed that teaching
structure and reading comprehension need both lecturer’s competence and students’
ability to make ESP teaching successful. It is suggested to the lecturer to
always update, revise and suit the digital
English teaching materials to find out the best strategy and media to develop digital
teaching ESP for civil engineering students.

English has been spoken
by most countries in the world as an international language. Consequently,
English has to be used in international communication both orall and in written
communication, for general as well as specific needs. Therefore, people in
countries where English is used as a second or foreign language have to learn
it, if they want to be able to communicate internationally. Indonesia, where
English is a foreign language, also has to teach the citizens especially the
young generation to learn English.

People use English to
communicate, to strengthen and to fasten relationship among all countries in
the world in all fields, for example in tourism as the language of tourism, and
also in politics, technology, law, nursing, trade, engineering etc. The field
itself is called English for Specific Purposes (ESP).

ESP is an approach to
language teaching in which all decisions as to content and method are based on
the learner's reason for learning (Hutchinson 1987). Basturkmen (2008) sets out
The Ideas and options in English for Specific Purpose used to examine ideas and
options in this work. English for
engineering is typical
English and restricted
English used in
engineering context and workplace. It
is a fact
that, over years,
English for engineering, especially civil engineering as
a branch of
ESP has been viewed
by many English
scholars and teachers
as having significant
effects on meeting students’ career needs.

Basically the objectives
of the study of civil engineering departement is to prepare students to be qualified in civil engineering.
Beside learning the major of study, English is given as a general subject to
students. By mastering English, students are expected to be able to absorb
knowledge of civil engineering is written in English. Lecturers of ESP should
make use of three key strategies if they want to have a successful lecture: honesty, preparation and confidence (Day and Krzanowski, 2011). In
following the development of technology, the lecturer must be able to design
the interesting teaching material, like digital teaching materials. The world
we live in today is populated by digital media products, and the shift from
traditional media has taken place in many industries, including industries that
aren’t typically associated with digital media—such as health, government and
education.

Digital Material is an
extensible modeling and software infrastructure to support the representation
and simulation of material structure and evolution across multiple length and
time scales Digital teaching material is more than just providing students with
a laptop. Digital teaching material requires a combination of technology,
digital content and instruction.

In response to
problems, the writer thinks that it is really important to help the students of
civil engineering at to adapt today's competitive society in order they are
able to face their job field after they graduate. In this research, the writer will
concern with developing digital English teaching materials for civil
engineering students in the first semester.

METHOD

This descriptive
qualitative research is applied.This research will be
conducted based on developmental research procedures. Today, even amid the
calls for increased use of alternative research methodologies, the notion of
developmental research is often unclear, not only to the broader community of
educational researchers, but to many instructional technology researchers as
well. An understanding of this topic is rooted in the nature of development and
research in general, as well as a more specific understanding of the purpose,
focus, and techniques of developmental research itself.

This
research used Research and Development methodology (R&D). Sugiyono
(2013) states that research and development (R &D) is a
research method used
to produce a
product and examine the
effectiveness of the product. It is aimed to help teachers and students to get
the best educational product.

The data was collected
through recorded for students of informatics and English lecturer in teaching
learning process in the classroom. There was three steps in data collection: Record
the lecturer’s and students’ interview,
transcribe the data, confirm the data revealed.

In collecting the data,
there will be three instruments used, they are questionnaire, interview
and documents. And the writer used to
get validity in collecting data. Triangulation is defined as technique of
collecting data by combination of some different data sources’’ (Moleong,
2010). The aim of triangulation is to increase one understands of what ever
being investigated. In this research, the researcher use a triangulation. This
is Data Collecting Technique Triangulation.

Figure 1
Triangulation Technique

FINDINGS
AND DISCUSSION

Material development is
very important part in teaching English for ESP students. It refers to all the
processes made of by practitioners who produce and/or use materials for
language learning, including materials evaluation, design, production,
exploitation and research. Ideally, all of these processes should be given
consideration and should interact in the making of language-learning.

The language skill
needed of civil engineering students is reading and speaking skills. Based on
the result of data analysis, the students needed reading skill in order to
comprehend the text and understand the construction items from the reading
text. The writer found out that the students were very week in comprehending
the text. They were difficult to make the conclusion of the text. The students
also needed to improve their knowledge about the construction items.

In defining draft of
reading material for civil engineering Students, the arrangement of the draft
of reading materials for civil engineering students are based on the research.
The data used to arrange the reading material. The four components of materials
arrangement for students of civil engineering can be shown in figure 2 below.

Based on the
observation, it was found that the students of civil engineering needed to
study English by using media, it can be seen as table 1 below

Table
1 The Need of Using Media

Secara
Individu (Individually)

4

9%

Menggunakan
media (Using media)

24

50%

Team/Berkelompok
(Team/group)

12

25%

Bermain
(game)

8

17%

Total

48

100%

From the table above, we
can conclude that there were 50% or 24 students like studying English by using
media, whether using, infocus, laptop or handphone. Based on the observation,
it was found that the students needed to study reading. Reading text should
consist of information about civil engineering items. The new terminology purposed to make
the students easier to comprehend the sentences. Furthermore, the course
materials should be chosen from actual differnt sources such as text books,
journals, article, magazines, and other materials used in content courses. The
students argued that actual materials consist of the recent materials about civil
engineering. It can be seen from the number of respondents (65%) in questionnaire
item as shown in table 2 below.

In arranging reading
materials, first activity is to ask the
student to read the text, after reading each text, the students are listening
the explaination of the text. The purpose of this activity is to check
students’ reading and listening comprehension. This reading materials were
designing by choosing suitable materials for civil engineering students and
recording the lecturer’s voice when she explained the text. This materials were
designed by using the SOM (Screencast-O-Matic) application. When the students
want to start reading materials, they have to start ‘play button’ to see the
text, and automatically the application will count 3,2,1, and go as shown in
figure 3 below.

Figur 3 Starting Reading Material

After the reading text is opened, the students are able to read the text
and listen the voice from the lecturer who is explaining the topic in 15
minutes, as shown in figure 4 below.

Figure 4 Reading Material

Beside the reading
skill, the students wondered to learn
speaking ability. The students’ beliefe that speaking ability is needed in
their future. They said that they have to communicate with their clients effectively their job
field. Beside that, the students need to get more focus on sentence structure.
Because structure is the most important element of language to learn.

In designing the
structure for example Simple Present Tense, it used photo story 3 application.
Firstly we write the topic in PowerPoin, so that all the students can read and
understanding the topic, as seen in figure 5 below.

Figure 5 Simple Present Tense Explaination

After having explaination about the tenses simple present
tense, we continue to develop the topic by making some exercises to develop the
student’s speaking skill. This exercises can be made by importing some photos.
The importing photos were wrote simple sentence. And then the students will
practice the use of tenses by telling the story about the pictures by their own
words as shown in figure 6 below.

Figure 6 Photo Story

In describing the photos, the students practice their understanding,
writing and speaking skill. They are free to give the topic. The lecturer can
ask one student to tell the story in front of the class, and the rest students
will pay attention about the story. After practicing the lecturer can ask the
conclusian about the photos.

CONCLUSION
AND SUGGESTION

This reserach is aim to know how digital
English materials English is designed for civil engineering students. The
digital English materials were done for 12 meetings in first semester.the
materials were developed by using SOM (Screencast-O-Matic) and Photo Story 3
application. This materials can be accessed in laptop, and android. The
componen used in developing teaching material are: topic, theme, orientation,
and evaluation. English reading materials should be attractive. Attractive here
means color picture, chart and photograph, in rder to attract the students’
interest . For future research, this digital English material can be developed
by using interisting animation. For materials, they should be designed more
interactive so that the students will not be boret in studying English. And it
is suggested to ESP lecturer to always update, revise and suit the teaching
materials to movement of world and find out the best media to develop teaching
ESP for civil engineering students.

ACKNOWLEDMENT

I thank to all the students and English
lecturer who participated in this research. I also express my gratitude to
computer lecturer for giving me suggestions and supporting this research.

REFERENCES

Ampa, A. Basri, M. Adriani, A. 2013. The Development
of Contextual Learning Materials for the English Speaking Skills. International
Journal of Education and Research. Vol. 1 No. 9 September 2013.

Dharmawati is an English lecturer of STT
Harapan Medan, North Sumatera. She teaches English for Specific Purposes. In
2013, she gained her master degree in English Applied Linguistics Study Program
Postgraduate School State University of Medan